The India-UK economic relationship is an important one, and would continue to go from strength to strength as the UK exits from the EU, according to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

CII reaffirms its commitment to building trade and investment ties and positively enhancing business linkages with the UK.

There is an increasing level of Indian investment into the UK, and many of these Indian businesses are doing extremely well. A recent Grant Thornton/CII ‘India Meets Britain’ report noted that the number of Indian companies growing at over 10 per cent per year in the UK has jumped to 62 from 36 in the previous year. Telecom and technology companies have achieved phenomenal growth, for example HCL Technologies recorded a growth of 728 per cent.

The world as we know it changed significantly today as Britain voted for Brexit but also threw up a historic opportunity for India and the UK to chart their own course within this new emerging scenario in Europe.

India and the UK must work proactively to build on their strategic partnership and seek a new kind of union with the wider the European Union (EU) community. Just as the UK’s Remain camp had stressed, it is not a binary decision – India has the right credentials to strike lucrative agreements with the UK as well as the EU. The one thing that is a given is that doing nothing is not an option for Indian business and political interest.

As the debate around Britain’s membership of the European Union (EU) enters its final few weeks before the June 23 referendum, our expert columnist flags up the reasons why India must take on a more decisive leadership role of another important collective – the Commonwealth.